


Love is Blind

by TristaML



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Angst, Death, M/M, Old Age, Sad, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:48:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28658220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TristaML/pseuds/TristaML
Summary: Goku and Vegeta grow old together...
Relationships: Son Goku/Vegeta (Dragon Ball)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 35
Collections: Angst for Kakabeji





	Love is Blind

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: 
> 
> The small details hereof are simply random head-canons and ideas that I have considered playing around with before, for my muses sake, and I wanted to create something a little more melancholy than my usual work...
> 
> The ending of this short story is, in this author's opinion, neither happy nor sad, but if I had to choose how to describe it from those two options, I would choose sad more so than happy. If you're looking for happy, as it is defined, go elsewhere, if you're looking for a bitter-sweet tear-jerker, read on...

Vegeta is older than me, but I never cared. I had never really even taken it into consideration before, honestly. Age is just a number and I’m not the best with those. Besides, why should it matter?

It _began_ to matter, though, and the more time passes us by, the more I’ve come to realize that age does things to a man; Saiyan or not.

How many years have we even been alive, now? I have no idea. Vegeta says close to 200 at this point. He sounds pretty sure, so I believe him, but I never knew my own birthday, and he refuses to tell me his, so I didn’t try to keep track.

I didn’t start wondering about this until things started to change, but the change seemed so small and insignificant at first that it didn’t bother me. Once it became something… un-ignorable, I still let it roll off my back. I tried to, anyways.

He didn’t, though, but I don’t blame him. Even time treated him differently than me.

It was all I could do to hold on to every precious moment as they came. He was doing the same, only, with so much more passion. He always was the emotional one between the two of us, which is just fine with me, but that doesn’t mean it’s been easy, not that I’m complaining.

The decline was inevitable, I know that. Our bodies were bound to start slowly breaking down on us while our mind’s stay sharp. Inescapable as it may be, neither of us were ready for it, and it sure as hell hasn’t been… typical. At least, I don’t think it has.

How does a warrior watch himself deteriorate? How does a fighter handle their own strength leaving them?

I’ll tell you: Not well.

I’ll be honest, I never thought it would happen. I guess that youth does feel infinite when you’re young, especially when you’re young and healthy for _so long_ , and the future seems so far off, but the time slowly came when we’d have to spend three days of rest after training instead of just one, or the occasional two, and the aches that we told ourselves were from over exertion began to linger longer, and sometimes even spring up when we’d done nothing at all to warrant them. Saiyan bodies stay youthful for so much longer than human’s, and even as we aged, we didn’t look that different at first. Until now.

He’s still the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. I shouldn’t say it like that, but I do pride myself on the fact that I can still appreciate it, even if he can’t. I’d never say that to him, though. Besides, he already knows how I feel, and he…

Eventually we both accepted it; eventually. We accepted it before it got worse, and then, eventually, we accepted it all over again.

It’s been many years since we first began to feel this deterioration, but the decline seemed to slope ever downwards at an increasing pace as the years rolled on and now, when I sit and think about it, I’m irritated to know that our starting points were different. That’s he’s older than me.

I just don’t know what I’d do without him.

Our obstacles have never been the same, either. That’s for sure. Vegeta’s have always been worse. Everything in **his** life always just _had_ to be _so_ challenging. Even now.

I’d make a joke that it’s something he should be proud of, something that he’s beaten me in, but I don’t think he’d find it very funny. He doesn’t find much very funny now a days, and there was a time when I _could_ make him laugh. Now I’m just happy if I can make him smile.

We only have each other, after all. Our loved ones are long gone, and while we know our great, great, great grandchildren, we only get to see them from the watchtower from time to time. Shit. Well, we used to. I mean, I get to see them… Damn it.

I’ve been trying to mind my words for years and I still can’t get it right.

I glance over at him. He knows I’m looking, somehow, but of course, he doesn’t respond in kind.

There’s comfort here for us, alone in our own home, with just the sounds of the clock on the wall ticking, and the fan on the ceiling rattling gently, and the birds chirping gayly, but I feel for Vegeta, so, so much. So much that he spent at least the first (and last) good year yelling at me for it.

" _I can_ feel _your emotions, Kakarot.”_ That’s what he used to say.

Then it turned to, “ _At least_ try _to calm down.”_

And then, _“Don’t pity me for fuck’s sake and leave me alone.”_

And finally, _“Stop it! Just get the fuck away from me! Don’t you think I’m already going through enough?!”_

But we both were, only I… I was the luckier one between us.

When it had first started happening, he’d tried to hide it. He’d tried to deny it. He’d tried anger, he’d tried stubbornness, he’d tried everything, until he finally accepted it; the fact that he was losing his sight. He blamed it on everything. Anything. So did I. It was from too many brushes with bright lights of ki in the face. Or maybe it was from too many hits to the head. Maybe it was the burning sensation of the power of our enemies obscuring his sight after so long enduring those types of hits. Too much strain on the body? Too much reading?

We don’t fucking know, and I don’t care, but damn it, why did it have to be him?!

Was it simply old age?

Was there something I could have done?

Even the dragon said he couldn’t fix this and Vegeta grimly concluded that there was no point. He even more stubbornly insisted that he deserved to live in the darkness that he’d always claimed had consumed him for so long. He finally let it, and it finally did.

So many arguments ensued once it was completely gone.

“Have you ever, _ever_ heard me ask for your help, Kakarot?”

I hesitated, and thought, _‘Maybe…? But not… actually…’_

Vegeta growled, as though listening to my thoughts, “No. I don’t need your help.”

I sighed but smiled dryly.

“Stop smiling at me like that.”

… Some things never change.

At first it was hell, but I’d take it, given that we were still in it together. And we were still very much _us_.

We were both still capable. Even going into our late stages of life, we were stronger than humans in their prime. He could still sense chi, so he knew where I was at all times, and, of course, I kept everything in the house the same once his sight was completely gone. (I’d accidentally left something on the floor one time, and he tripped over it. I don’t think he talked to me for a week after that, so I learned pretty quickly.)

I’d help him, as nonchalantly as I could, and he would growl and grumble, but eventually he stopped fighting me and let me do the little things for him. It gave me a sense of purpose, anyways.

The true tests always came unexpectedly. The tests of our faith in one another, and in ourselves, and those were the trying moments when I thought for certain that he might try something drastic. My worry wasn’t necessary; for all the darkness in him, and now surrounding him, he was too prideful for that…

He wasn’t too prideful to cry, though, or to yell and to curse at me when he felt like he was a burden, or to shut himself away when he was feeling sorry for himself.

I cried, too, especially when he told me how much he missed my smile and how handsome he’s always thought I was.

I didn’t smile as much after that.

The years continued to pass and things between us had become calm again, serene, even, but I didn’t do much anymore, and Vegeta did even less. I hated it, what had become of us, but eventually I came to understand that this is just how life goes and that it was time to slow down, even though neither of us wanted to.

I’d taken to reading to him, and I got pretty good at it, too, but even that gets old after a while.

He insisted that he continues to help with cooking and chores, even in his blindness, and he continued doing some light kata’s to keep himself going, but even that was getting tiresome.

Everything else was my responsibility. Everything. I guess it was my very overdue payment, for all those years my wife had taken care of me. I was willing to pay that price though, and I did everything I could to make our lives easier, although, there wasn’t much to do. At least I _could._

_But I felt worn thin. So did Vegeta._

How many more years has it been? How old are we now? 250? 260? Vegeta says we’ve lived an unnaturally long life at this point, even for Saiyans. At this point, I definitely believe him.

I felt a tiredness in my bones that I didn’t like to admit, and my only comfort was the man who sat beside me, who still asked me what I was doing out of curiosity, or what was going on if he heard any noise that seemed the least bit suspicious.

At first, when I’d look his way, he’d somehow sense it, and say, “Stop fucking staring at me, Kakarot.”

But now, he doesn’t say it anymore. He hardly says anything anymore.

Except for, “Good morning…” and “Good night…” and the occasional, muttered…

“Kakarot… Come here.”

I did as he asked and stepped over to the bed where he was laying. I knelt down beside him, ignoring the pain in my legs in doing so.

“I can hear your bones creaking! Don’t be so proud, Kakarot, use the damn cane…”

I can hear how tired he is, even as he scolds me, and I chuckle at him, and say stubbornly, “I’m coming to bed, soon, Vegeta. I don’t need it.”

He concedes with a small huff, “Fine… Good…”

I ask him gently, “Did you want me to read to you? I can grab something…”

“By the gods, no,” he says with the shake of his head. He turns to me again and reaches for my hand.

I immediately grab onto it and stand back up, slowly, wincing at the pain in my knees; it’s nearly too much to bear. “I’ll be right back,” I tell him quietly, rubbing his hand with my thumb for a moment.

Squeezing my hand before I can step away, he takes a deep breath but otherwise doesn’t move. I wait and finally he says, “… Kakarot…”

“Yes, Vegeta?” I reply, squeezing back as I look down at him fondly.

I wish I could read him by now, but his face is still ever mysterious as he tells me, “… You’re something else, you know that?”

I chuckle, “Ahh, maybe, but nothing compared to you.”

I see the faint traces of a smirk on his face as he takes another deep breath, “Kakarot…” his hand holds tighter, then, it loosens.

“Vegeta?”

“Vegeta…?”

“Vegeta… … …”

My whole body shakes, and I laid down beside him and cried out in misery.

His ki is gone.

I must have gone through every emotion possible and then some. I don’t know how long I laid there crying as I thought and thought and thought about all of our time together, our lives together. Our fights, our loves, our enmity, our joys, our passions. I thoughts about us. About him.

I cried and cried until I fell asleep, and like Guru, way back in the day, on Planet Namek, lifetimes ago, I felt so much anguish that I couldn’t bare it.

I willed my heart to stop, and I never woke up.


End file.
